


No Time for Gloom, No Room for Nostalgia

by rejected (surskitty)



Series: Past the Seven-coloured Rainbow [1]
Category: Pokemon, Reborn!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:44:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surskitty/pseuds/rejected
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a big world for wayward trainers, Haru thinks, and Chrome doesn't disagree.  That they would meet eventually is more luck than anything else, but Haru wouldn't ever leave someone alone when they need a hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reflections, Refractions

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by Ready Go. Kudos to Midnight for infinite patience as beta and cheerleader.

Nagi doesn't trust the spirits whispering from the confines of the rock she finds abandoned by her classmates. She thinks they might've been friends; from what she remembers of local lore, spiritomb have a tendency to only appear to people in large groups. Perhaps it's in search of redemption; perhaps it's some form of revenge. She's not sure, and she doesn't think the sages who recorded some of the lore were, either, but she doubts that she meets the criteria.

That's fine, though. She doesn't need to: it's here. Or perhaps they're here; she listens as the spirits bicker just beyond the edge of her hearing until one says one sharp, silent word. "I am Mukuro," it -- he? -- states after a moment. Ensuring the rest won't interrupt? Perhaps.

It'd be polite to respond, but ... it's not _right_ to talk to ghosts. Even if they start it. Especially if they start it. And even if she doesn't usually care about propriety, ghost pokémon tend to. So she simply nods, and waits. If she doesn't give it her name, sooner or later he'll give her a new one.

* * *

She keeps his stone in her bag always. She doesn't know if he approves, exactly; he speaks in sighs and whispers and never quite lies but he does not tell the truth. And that is how it should be, from what she understands; she is not experienced with the medium's arts but she looked for books, once he spoke, and she thinks she may know what he is. She does not think he would harm her, but the one hundred and eight spirits bound within his rock are not known for their love for humans. There are reasons they are bound, after all.

Still. Still.

The monster is hers, in some ways, and she thinks she could rely on him, if she were to leave on a journey. Her mother would _not_ approve, of her journey or her choice in pokémon, but she does not expect her to. She is not the daughter her parents wanted.

And that may be fine.

So _Nagi_ will stay at home.

* * *

She stays near Hearthome as Nagi for a remarkable length of time in her eye; she's had the rock for nearly a month before she decides she might as well leave.

"What is my name?" she says on a whim to the spiritomb. It sounds deep and mysterious to her ears, and for once she understands why people think she is -- odd.

His face stops spinning for a moment in thought. _Your name, indeed._

"Yes." She waits.

 _... ... ... You are Chrome,_ he announces. Perhaps she is. クローム, a reflection built off his identity in replacement to her own, someone who might travel as she pleases. Someone defined by a person sufficiently disturbed to be bound in a keystone for five hundred years.

"Thank you."

The sages wouldn't approve. She hasn't met any in years, however, and cannot quite bring herself to care.


	2. Of Balloons and Tomfoolery

The Valley Windworks are haunted. It's common knowledge that a drifloon wanders the property on Fridays, but -- ghosts are not known for their wide ranges. More likely, something about Fridays convinces the drifloon to show themselves. Perhaps the spirit who attracted the drifloon died on a Friday. Perhaps the drifloon merely understands five day workweeks. She's not there to find out what it is about the place that attracts the spirits of departed balloons, though; Mukuro-sama had said that she would need a method of transportation and she agrees.

It's Wednesday, so she walks into the building to go to the front desk, keystone safely in her bag. "Excuse me," she mumbles.

"Yes?" she says without looking up from some paperwork.

She pauses to gather her thoughts (and ignore the spiritomb's muttered slights upon bureaucracies, sciences, and likely many other things; he seems to have strong opinions on many subjects that she would have difficulty caring less about). "... Where does the drifloon appear?"

She looks up from a summary of power output to meet Chrome's eye. "Right outside by the front bench, but it's Wednesday; it won't be there until Friday."

Chrome nods slowly. "That's all right." Visible is not the same as present, and noticed is not the same as visible, and she has no patience for those who conflate the three. "Thank you," she says belatedly, and she leaves.

* * *

The bench is cheap plastic, which means that as far as useful surfaces for minor summonings go, it ranks fairly high: she can engrave a small circle on it with no one being the wiser. She'd have to worry about someone watching and possibly stopping her, of course, but Mukuro doesn't worry about little details like eyes or blind spots and she's fairly sure her hearing is good enough to catch anyone Mukuro-sama can't sense, even with poor peripheral vision.

The drifloon does not respond to a drop of blood.

Perplexed, Chrome turns to the rock and mutters, "Mukuro-sama?"

 _Give it more strength,_ he says blandly, so she clears her mind and focuses on convincing any spirit haunting the area to manifest. No result. There is a chronic lack of drifloon.

Maybe the researcher is right; maybe it really won't be there until Friday. But that doesn't add up with what she knows about spirits --

Mukuro does something she doesn't quite catch, but she has a faint image of her mind of what she thinks might have been his human form once -- a boy, a bit older than her, with dark blue hair in a messy and somewhat implausible hairstyle, with a long trident and a smile that has seen the world burn -- smirking suggestively at ... something .. and doing what some might call a sashay.

This mental image is ridiculous and she tries to forget it immediately.

But the drifloon _does_ show up.

* * *

The problem with Mukuro having lured out the drifloon with his _masculine wiles_ (and probably a captivate attack or three) is that the drifloon is now lured by his masculine wiles. In particular, she has been trying very, very hard to lift up his -- rock whenever he is too tired to suggest that she let it wait until there isn't a human around. There wouldn't _be_ a human around if she could just carry him off, after all!

For once in his life, Mukuro pities himself for his many charms and sheer inhuman attractiveness and manly manliness, even if he is stuck in a rock.


	3. Introductions of a Sort

Haru comes across the slightly-odd girl in the Fallarbor Pokémon Center and immediately decides that she needs a friend. She seems all lonely in the corner with just a rock for company! So she walks over and announces, "Hi! I'm Miura Haru, from Celadon City!"

The girl hurriedly puts the stone back in her backpack, then looks at her quizzically. "... hello. I'm -- Chrome," she says, slightly hesitant. New trainer? She'd have to be, Haru supposes; most trainers quickly grow used to the routine of introduction, introduction, battle, leave.

She doesn't dwell on it, though; "It's nice to meet you, Chrome-chan!" she says, grinning widely along with Manekkun from his vantage point on her shoulder. The mime jr's love of mimicking her is so _cute_ ~

Chrome doesn't seem to notice, though, and merely nods. "Are you ... a pokémon trainer?" She sounds sort of distant, or perhaps preoccupied, and her lone eye's watching an area in the general vicinity of Haru's sandals.

"Yep! Are you?"

She glances back at her backpack, then smiles half-heartedly. "I ... am, yes. Would you like to battle?"

* * *

Haru's already grabbed the pokéball for her first choice -- she hasn't used her new spinda yet but she's so _cute_ and Haru's going to make her her very own namahage costume so they can be namahage together~~ -- when the girl finally stops rummaging through her bag for a pokéball and just takes out a rock. It's a very interesting rock -- it's sort of wedge-shaped and it has a little face on it, how cute~ -- but it still looks like it's just a rock. ... It's a very _big_ rock, though; how does Chrome-chan manage to lift and carry it? It looks like it might weigh significantly more than Chrome, though that doesn't look hard; Haru decides that Chrome-chan needs a sandwich. Maybe she can recruit Kyouko into Operation: FEED CHROME.... Kyouko likes cooking, and Haru just decided that she and Chrome will be best friends for as long as is convenient.

She looks at the rock, eyebrow furrowed slightly, then nods. "I'm ready," she says.

Haru smiles and presses the button. "Pacchan, go!" The small panda pops out of the ball with a splashing sound and does a little spinny dance ending with a bow to the rock, which she seems to recognize as a pokémon. Haru isn't quite sure how she can _tell_ \-- it's a rock and it doesn't look like anything other than a rock; maybe it's a foreign pokémon? If it _is_ a pokémon.... "Who goes first?"

She looks at the rock, then says, "You may."

Haru _grins_. "Pacchan, teeter dance!" The spinda takes that as her cue to start her strange, wobbly dance. A step to the left, half-spin, wibble wobble and yet she never quite falls down -- and Haru starts to dance along. She can't quite hear the music, though she's heard that teeter dance's compulsion sticks a tune in one's head for anyone with any psychic sensitivity at _all_ ; part of why teeter dance is usually so devastating is that it creates an earworm that won't let go and resurfaces throughout the battle. Trainers of teeter dancers either need to be sensitive enough to have learned to block it out or completely resistant. It has something to do with type-affinities; Haru doesn't care to remember the details. What matters is that teeter dance is _fun_ and she's heard that it's stronger the more people participate -- and if you're not around a lot of people who are either naturally good at resisting or trained to resist it, you can get a _lot_ of participants -- and even if she doesn't get the full force of the compulsion, she can still do her part.

She remembers to pay attention to the actual battle after a moment, and thankfully Chrome hasn't ordered anything.

The rock sits there, completely oblivious to the spinda's efforts. Chrome, for her part, staggers briefly but otherwise ignores the teeter dance. Interesting.

"Mukuro-sama?" she says clearly, watching the rock. And after a moment, the rock -- _flickers_ a pale green, though it still mostly looks like a normal rock. She has a distinct impression of _intelligence_ , however.

Pacchan pauses briefly to glare at the stone, then wobbles a bit more furiously. ... until she's sent flying by a faint indigo blast in her face sent by the rock. Haru hears a faint _kufufu_ but doesn't care; she's already bolted to pick up and hug the spinda. "Hahi--? What was that?"

Chrome looks at the rock with faint admiration and walks over to also pick up her pokémon and hug it. "Dark pulse," she says, preoccupied. "Mukuro-sama is very impressive."

Satisfied that the spinda is mostly okay (if irritated by teeter dance's failure and also the fact that a single attack sent her flying; what is up with that?), Haru nods hesitantly. "What kind of pokémon is -- it?" And what kind of person called their pet rock 'corpse'? Politely? Other than gloomy people filled with gloom, and Chrome doesn't seem the type. Not enough fishnets, for one.

The rock seems to be looking at her. "A -- spiritomb," she says, "a type of ghost from Sinnoh."

Huh. Sinnoh. Haru's not been to Sinnoh yet, though she's heard it's very ... different. Different enough for vaguely normal ghost trainers? "-- Would you like to travel with me?" she says, mostly on a whim.

The girl looks stunned and more than a bit confused as she looks down at her rock -- her spiritomb, Haru supposes, not just a rock, though it certainly looks like one -- then frowns. "I need to go -- someplace."

"I don't have plans," Haru says quickly. "Could I travel with you?" _You look lonely,_ she wants to say.

"... yes."

* * *

Adventuring with Chrome, Haru discovers, is very odd. Oh, not because Chrome has weird habits or anything (if anything, it's Haru who's weird there), but because the girl is very quiet. It's not significantly different from traveling alone; in fact, sometimes she nearly thinks she _is_ alone since Chrome-chan wanders off so frequently. Haru doesn't know where the girl goes, but she has little interest in asking; Chrome shrinks from most conversation she doesn't have a set response for and Haru worries a little whenever she sees her looking to her spiritomb for advice. Pokémon don't talk, or at least not usually, and the people who understand them tend to be a bit ... off.

Given that Haru's heard that ghost trainers are _weird_ , if Chrome-chan isn't getting a double dose of weird, Haru doesn't know how she could handle either of them. At least Chrome is completely adorable; it's a pity she doesn't seem to like people that much, since Haru thinks she would make a _great_ Pokémon Idol. Not the sort who do a lot of shows, though Chrome-chan could probably manage that, but the ones who earn their fans through sheer force of cute. That drifblim? One of the most adorable pokémon ever, particularly when -- she? Haru thinks the drifblim's a she... -- works on carrying Chrome-chan and Haru around.

She nearly wishes that she'd been to Sinnoh just so she could have her very own balloon pokémon. Look at that face! It's so cute! -- and then Chrome-chan had explained some of the ... idiosyncrasies ... of the balloon pokémon. And of her Mukuro-sama, and the more Haru learns of the rock the more she wants to throw it/him in a pond somewhere and explain to Chrome that it's not good to befriend pokémon who like trying to kill people. Not that the drifblim has tried to hurt anyone, to her knowledge, or that the spiritomb's done anything to Chrome, but it's the principle of the matter. It's like trusting a shuppet; sooner or later it's going to want to see how to turn _you_ into a good source of food, and no one's going to be particularly happy about that. (Except the shuppet, but the shuppet's opinion doesn't count. It's a shuppet.)

Now where was Chrome now?

**Author's Note:**

> Pokémon for reference:  
> Miura Haru of Celadon: kireihana f (Hana-chan), sabonea f (Sabocchan), doredia f (Dorecchan), manene m (Manekkun), pacchiiru f (Pacchan)  
> Dokuro Chrome (Nagi) of Hearthome: mikaruge m (Rokudou Mukuro), fuwaraido f, gengaa f, pururiru f, derubiru m (Ken), kagebouzu/jupetta m (Chikusa)
> 
> Apologies for gratuitous Japanese. I tend to gravitate towards the Japanese names over the English ones, and I'm not sure if I should change the references to pokémon names to match the few references to canon Pokémon characters. It feels odd to use charmander and, say, Masaki, but it'd also feel odd to use charmander and Bill or hitokage and Masaki. I'm not going to switch to charmander and Bill as the model since then the KHR gang's the only one with Japanese names, but if someone has a good argument for switching to hitokage and Masaki I might.
> 
> I'm not sure how clear some details of the 'verse are; feel free to ask about anything.


End file.
